"Matt" wrote in message
...
How much should I be paying for some good ones?

When designing my grill for my outdoor kitchen / BBQ area, I bought a bag of
landscaping lava rocks... These are quite a bit cheaper than the small bags
that are sold just for the grills... Some of them are smaller than the ones
that are sold explicitly for grills, but I just adjusted the size of the
support grid so that they wouldn't fall through... I have about a 3" layer
of these rocks in my grill with about an inch or so between the burner holes
and the bottom of the lava rock support gridwork... It takes a bit longer to
heat up, but I'm using natural gas, so it's cheaper anyway... I can get the
rocks cherry red and turn down or off the gas and still cook... For the
grill surface, I use 1/2" square solid bar stock from a metal / welding
supply shop like is used in the better quality metal fencing... Most of the
metal fencing that you see these days is the square tube type, but the solid
stuff is about the same price as the 16-gauge stuff when you're buying 20 ft
sections of it... Because it's so thick, it lasts a *long* time even if it
was just left outside in the rain...